All predictors are significantly related to the outcome variable--voting for Bush over Kerry or Nader. (The dependent variable is evenly split so I can get away with using OLS). "Black" is a comparison of blacks versus whites, and is the strongest predictor in the model. Frequency of church attendance is next. "Other race" is in comparison with whites, and is about as predictive as sex, education or income. Another way of stating this is that whiteness is a relatively strong predictor of voting Republican.

For those interested in getting more people to vote Republican, none of these predictors is easy to manipulate. For example, how do you get more people to go to church? Setting aside the question of practicality, Republicans might benefit if more people saw themselves as white. If America embraced, say, a Coonian understanding of Caucasian, and focused on facial features rather than skin color, fewer Americans might be drawn to the party of people who feel like aliens--the Democrats. You know--feminists, homosexuals, immigrants, Jews, non-Christians, and non-whites.

The use of the term "white" does not help since it brings some pasty dude to mind. This has always been a misleading term. My ancestry is 100 percent northern European, and I can give John Boehner a run for his money any day. One of my brothers looks a little like an Arab. A rough rule of thumb would go like this: "Forget the little groups around the world. Does he look like an East Asian? Does he look like a sub-Saharan African? Does he look like an American Indian? No? Then he's a Caucasian guy."

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"The creation myth was the essential bond that held the tribe together. It provided its believers with a unique identity, commanded their fidelity, strengthened order, vouchsafed law, encouraged valor and sacrifice, and offered meaning to the cycles of life and death. No tribe could survive long without the meaning of its existence defined by a creation story. The option was to weaken, dissolve, and die." ~ E.O. Wilson